Gopi's Love for Lord Krsna.

Gopi's Love for Lord Krsna :


Gopis’ love for Krishna was not a physical passion. It was supreme love. For them Lord Krishna was the living God. He was the moving image of the Supreme Lord. Their faith was intense. When they thought of Lord Krishna they forgot their worldly activities. They were merged in the love of Krishna.
Lord Krishna attracted their hearts from His very boyhood. He was a very beautiful child. He was beauty incarnate. So the Gopis began to love Krishna from His very birth. They caressed and loved Krishna as they would do their own children. The Gopa girls of Brindavan loved Krishna as their own brother. Is there any sexual love between brother and sister? A sister loves her younger
brother. She fondles him and plays with him. Such was the relationship between the Gopis and Krishna.
Gradually the love for Krishna assumed the shape of intense Prema (divine love). They thought of Krishna alone when they churned the curd, when they took water from the well. They sang His praises when they took bath. They remembered Him when they took food and at all times. Their minds became Krishnamaya by incessant practice of Smarana (remembrance) of the Lord.

It is possible that when the Gopis grew of age they might have been moved by physical love also, as it is the case with every animated being. Sleep, food and sex are common to all living
beings.
But Lord Krishna knew the hearts of the Gopis. He turned the hearts of the Gopis to the proper direction by completely eradicating lust from their minds. It is with this purpose in view that Lord Krishna played the Rasa Lila with the Gopis.
At the time of Rasa Lila, He multiplied Himself into so many Krishnas. The Gopis were struck with wonder and amazement. All their idea of physical love entirely vanished due to this miracle. They witnessed the showers of flowers poured from the skies by the Devas. They saw the Vidyadharas, Gandharvas, Yakshas, Charanas, etc., singing the praise of the Lord. They enjoyed
the blissful company of the Lord at the time of Rasa Lila, a bliss millions of times greater than the bliss they would enjoy through sense objects. They enjoyed the bliss of Samadhi or union with God.
‘This is this, this is that’—this conception of difference is only the delusion of a man whose mind is distracted and uncontrolled and is not united to the Lord. The man of uncontrolled mind falls into the error that there is plurality of objects. This error leads to merit and demerit, or right and wrong, good and evil. The uncontrolled Jiva, who is bewildered and deluded by this diversity created by the natural outward tendency of the senses, fancies himself as a separate unit in the world and begins to entertain desires and enjoys sensual objects. Duty, non-performance of duty and the
performance of forbidden acts (Karma, Akarma and Vikarma) result from this delusion of diversity caused by the mind, senses and intellect. The differences of action, inaction and evil action pertain only to the man who has notions of merit and demerit, right and wrong, good and bad. It is the delusion born of the conception of differences, that causes the experiences or notions of right and
wrong, good and bad, merit and demerit. The Vedas speak of the performance of prescribed work, the non-performance of prescribed work, and the performance of prohibited work, for those only who have got the ideas of right and wrong, good and bad, merit and demerit. One should abandon the sense of egoism, control the mind and the senses and behold everything in the universe as Brahman. One should realise the essence of one’s own nature, bliss and harmony with the universe and behold the wide-spread universe in the Self and the Self in the Supreme Lord.
He who has risen above good and bad does not refrain from doing what is prohibited from a sense of fear of evil consequences nor does he do the prescribed duty in the hope that it will conduce
to merit; but he acts only like a child. The sense of right and wrong will be natural in him independently of scriptural teachings. He has destroyed all egoism. The laws of the world do not affect him. He has no more duties to perform. He is above Karma and Karmas cannot touch him. He may, for the instruction of the world, perform works or refrain from forbidden acts. He will exceed the limits of both right and wrong.
This wonderful and unprecedented experience made the Gopis firmly believe that Krishna was not an ordinary mortal. They had firm conviction that Krishna was the Lord Himself, though
sometimes they saw Him as the son of Nanda and Yasoda only. The idea of Lord Krishna as God was not strong in them till the time of Rasa Lila due to the Yoga Maya of the Lord.

The song of the Gopis (Gopi Gitam) in Bhagavata (Skanda X-Ch. 31) bears ample proof of the fact that they regarded Krishna as the Supreme Lord. They got rid of the least tinge of sex-passion in them and were attached to the Lord by the bonds of intense Prema (divine love).
The superhuman miracles of Krishna in his childhood made them believe in his Omniscience and Omnipotence. Would there be a worse fool in this world who would have lower passion towards the Lord who is the bestower of all desires of men? The Lord is the supreme cause for all happiness that men experience. Having seen Him face to face, what greater fool is there whocould crave for lower pleasures. Would anybody crave for black sugar (Gur) when sugarcandy isavailable in plenty?
From this it is clear that the love of Gopis towards Krishna was of a divine nature. They had Ananya Bhakti and they were free from all lower and base desires for sexual enjoyment.